NYPD-Microsoft Expand Surveillance Partnership To Precincts

An anti-terrorism system jointly created by Microsoft and the New York Police Department will expand to the city's precincts, where thousands of cameras and license plate readers will be used to fight street crime.

The New York Police Department's Domain Awareness System, which links together a massive network of CCTV cameras, license plate readers, radiation detectors, motion detection systems, and sophisticated algorithms to detect possible terrorist activity, is expanding to every police precinct in the city. Reuters' Chris Francescani spoke with NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne, who said "The technology, having been inspired and engineered with a sense of urgency after 9/11, has obvious applications to conventional crime fighting [...] That is in the process of being expanded citywide, for what—after all—is our primary mission, which is to fight crime."

New York has 76 police precincts. Although the NYPD declined to offer a timeline, eventually the $230 million program will be integrated into all police cars, with officers using special mobile devices that plug into Domain Awareness. Apart from its use in the five boroughs, Microsoft and the NYPD are aggressively marketing the Domain Awareness System to third party buyers.